Jessica Bowie, 35, of Albany, New York, appeared in federal court on 20 August 2026 charged with attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organisation, ISIS. According to the criminal complaint filed in the Northern District of New York, Bowie planned to detonate an explosive device at the New York State Capitol, targeting state senators while they were sitting, before travelling to ISIS-controlled territory in Syria. She was arrested on 19 Aug

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has unsealed a nine-count indictment against four alleged members of a Bronx-based criminal enterprise known as the "War Room", charging racketeering, violence in aid of racketeering, firearms, fraud, narcotics and money laundering offences in connection with more than $12 million in fraudulent Medicaid claims. Louis Trejo, Kenneth Garner, Harold Stevenson and Erihk Belis are accused of fabricating patient transport data between 2

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has unsealed a 14-count superseding indictment charging 17 members of the Mabna Institute, an Iran-based company alleged to have run a decade-long campaign of computer intrusions on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and other Iranian government and university clients. Nine of the defendants were named in an earlier 2018 indictment; eight are newly charged. The case sits before the US District Court for the Sou

Jianfei Lu, a 31-year-old Chinese national, was sentenced on 18 August 2026 in the Western District of North Carolina to 15 years' imprisonment and ordered to forfeit $25 million for his role in a Chinese money laundering organisation (CMLO) that moved more than $92 million in criminal proceeds in under two years, much of it derived from narcotics importation routed through Mexico. The mechanics matter more than the headline figure. Lu operated first as a courier, collecting

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has appointed Sabina Saini and Darine Obeid as financial services attachés for India and the UAE respectively, extending an overseas network that already covers Washington DC, Brussels, Singapore and the wider Asia-Pacific. Saini took up her post at the British Deputy High Commission in Mumbai on 10 August 2026; Obeid joins the British Embassy in Abu Dhabi on 31 August 2026. The FCA has framed both postings around policy influence and inw

A Colombian national has pleaded guilty in the US to a seven-year money laundering conspiracy that converted narcotics proceeds into consumer electronics destined for Colombia, in a case that maps directly onto a typology UK institutions continue to detect poorly. Andrelio Castaño Rojas, 55, admitted conspiring to launder drug trafficking proceeds through a currency exchange scheme between January 2018 and March 2025. He opened US bank accounts for two of his US companies and

A Cuban national has pleaded guilty in the Middle District of Florida to alien smuggling, asylum fraud and money laundering offences arising from a scheme that moved thousands of individuals into the US through fraudulent immigration applications. Yuniel Lima-Santos, 31, of Tampa, admitted conspiring with others to operate a smuggling organisation that solicited clients openly across social media platforms, advertising both transport services and bogus visa facilitation. The

A former relationship manager at a US bank branch in the Sheepshead Bay area of Brooklyn has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for conspiring to launder more than $8 million in healthcare fraud proceeds on behalf of a transnational criminal organisation (TCO). Renat Abramov, 37, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering in February 2026 and was sentenced on 11 August 2026. The case was investigated by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Ins

A Mexican national has pleaded guilty to a money laundering conspiracy involving the collection of more than $1.9 million in drug proceeds in the US and the return of those funds to Mexico via cryptocurrency or wire transfer. According to court documents, Daniel Gordiano Valenzuela, 60, who was residing in Mexico at the time of his arrest, served as a money broker within an organisation that conspired with drug traffickers to launder funds on their behalf in Mexico. Gordiano

Connor Riley Moucka, 26, of Kitchener, Ontario, pleaded guilty on 5 August 2026 to a computer hacking conspiracy that compromised more than 165 victim organisations and resulted in the theft of billions of sensitive customer records. According to court documents, Moucka and his co-conspirators used stolen login credentials between February and October 2024 to access cloud-hosted data belonging to customers of a US-based software-as-a-service company, exfiltrating terabytes of

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has assessed a $125m civil money penalty against UBS Financial Services Inc (UBSFS) for wilful violations of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), the largest penalty imposed to date on a broker-dealer for BSA failings. UBSFS has admitted that it failed to implement and maintain an anti-money laundering programme meeting the statutory minimum, and failed to file suspicious activity reports. The aggravating feature is recidivism. UBSFS e

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) unsealed a three-count complaint on 31 July 2026 charging Mohammad Yousef Hasna, 45, a Turkish national resident in Istanbul and also known as "Orhan Korkmaz" and "Abu al-Baraa", with conspiring to provide material support to Hamas, conspiring to finance terrorism, and financing terrorism. Each count carries a maximum penalty of 20 years' imprisonment. Hasna was arrested in the United Kingdom on the same day and was ordered detain